Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘That Puzzle Game Everyone Knows’ and ‘BAKED:MAGIC’
Hm?
That Puzzle Game Everyone Knows is the lengthy title of a suspiciously familiar puzzle game by Pixelbark, a solo indie dev in England. Made in a week, players will stack blocks in the hopes of filling rows to delete them from existence so that they can keep going forever.
Players will have a series of four blocks that are interconnected to make a shape fall from the sky. It is up to the player to find the best way to lay them out at the bottom. A full row of blocks will cause that row to be destroyed and points to be gained, so that the game can keep going. Make too many mistakes and it compounds to the point that the blocks will ‘spawn’ above the grid, and then the game will be over. There’s no fancy powers outside of the ability to rotate the blocks and store one of them in the hopes of getting a better one (and using that one for later).
What makes That Puzzle Game Everyone Knows more interesting is in how cheeky it is. The theme song that is iconic with Tetris is being played on a kazoo, while sound effects are generated from the dev’s mouth. The blocks all have dorky faces on them that move about as the blocks fall for some comedic effect. All so that you can realize that this is just a cheeky Tetris game that legally cannot call itself Tetris.
If you want Tetris but don’t want to deal with the hassle of ‘seriousness’ then you’ve got this.
BAKED:MAGIC is a visual novel created by WitPOP, an indie studio in Australia. Players will follow the life and thymes of Lana, a witch and baker, as she works to sell the best pastries in the land.
Players get to read through Lana’s interactions with her apprentice Elliot as she prepares muffins for her customers. Elliot is a rambunctious sort that is horribly novice at magic, so Lana also teaches her how to cast spells that can assist with baking. The only other ‘mainstay’ is Jayne, a knight of the kingdom that arrives at the store’s opening to order the same blueberry muffin every time. A lot of the worldbuilding occurs here as both Lana and Jayne discuss events while Elliot tries her best to not butt in and ask a million questions about both of their pasts.
Where things deviate is in the minigames that occur during Lana’s attempts to teach Elliot magic. These are split in two, between finding the right ingredients in the room to make muffins (sometimes with a timer!), or clicking on batter to whisk it. The second one is particularly enjoyable as it is a pressure challenge. If Elliot messes up then she will ‘accidentally’ light the batter on fire. Nevertheless these minigames help to flesh out the game a tad. They are not the main focus, only a fun side event to help give some variation.
BAKED:MAGIC lets you live out your fantasies of being a witch and baking food while interacting with others and not confessing your feelings. The story is intentionally short, and leads to a climactic end that summarizes many of the interactions from before while somehow giving a bit of a twist at the end. I’m still confused what the colourful fuchsia potion is for, even after finishing the game, but I will not say any more about it because that would be spoilers. The game is not long enough to spoil important things like that; you’ll just have to play the game and find out what is happening with dear Lana
